Every great religious movement has been in its origin or at its highest point universal in its aspiration, claiming to make appeal to all mankind and to become at length the religion of the whole world. And it is this very universal claim which seems to some dispassionate critics so narrow- spirited and fanatical, which bears witness to the force and reality of that deepest religious life [p.11] which underlies all difference of dogma, and finds its expression in all these varying faiths. At the moment of its budding forth, the tiny twig feels within it the expanding life of the whole tree. "I am the true tree, and the tree that is to be." it may be imagined as saying; though the great boughs above it do not stir in the wind that shakes it to and fro. The twig may have within it the possibility of growth to a size exceeding the stem from which it now springs, or it may remain only a twig; but in either case it is a part of the tree, and in a sense it is the tree; its life is the tree's life. So every great religious movement, when at its best and highest, looks forward to world-wide extension; it may be that the flood of life takes new channels and only a tiny sect remains to bear witness to what has been, but yet, when its members were filled with their first enthusiasm, and went forth into the world to win others to their views, they were strong because somehow or other they had come into touch with the eternal; their creed and organisation may have corresponded only to the need of the day, and of a limited number of people, or it may have been of wider application and able to endure for a longer time, but in spite of these limitations, the creed and organisation represent an inner life through which their members came into touch with the source of all life and strength. Our task then must be to strive to be more conscious of this fact in our own lives, and [p.12] in elaborating our own systems, as well as in dealing with and considering the religious views of others. In discarding the transient elements, the husks of dogma, we have to respect the seed-corn of life within them. The recognition of this will make us more reverent towards even the hoary errors of antiquity, and the methods of thought and life which to us are outworn, but were once living, and still may be living to some.